Barbara (Dutcher) Resnik

Barbara Dutcher Kimball Resnik of Northampton and Monterey, Massachusetts passed away peacefully (but unexpectedly) on Sunday, Dec. 11. Born on May Day 1940 in Columbus, Ohio, she was the daughter of the late Francis Edward and Nancy (Callander) Dutcher. She graduated in 1958 from Nicolet High School in Glendale, Wisconsin.
Barbara was a force — a political activist, an accomplished artist, an attorney, a passionate and beloved professor. A proud feminist, she considered mothering four children the most important thing she’d ever done, an opinion she expressed vehemently and often to her students, her colleagues, her friends, and most importantly, to her children.
Her creative nature influenced everything she touched, from spearheading the Our House Teen Center in Greenwich, Connecticut during the turbulent late ‘60s to designing and printing posters for the 1978 Equal Rights Amendment March on Washington. Driven by her insatiable curiosity, she returned to school, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1978 and continuing on to Cardozo School of Law, determined to defend First Amendment rights, Roe v. Wade, women’s rights and human rights worldwide. Upon completion of her law degree in 1981, her first job was with a firm specializing in the rights of unwed mothers and their children. Later, for more than two decades she was able to merge her many skills as a professor at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, teaching courses in Art & the Law, the First Amendment, Feminist Theory, and the practice of art.
Nothing brought her more joy than family. She and her first husband, Justin H. Kimball, raised their children in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, traveling the country each summer in a yellow van with an oversized Coleman cooler, often with a canoe strapped to the roof. In 1980, Barbara moved to New York City with her second husband, the late Solomon Resnik, starting many of their days at the Hungarian Pastry Shop animatedly discussing politics. Family summers eventually moved to a lakeside cottage in the Berkshires, where the new generation of grandchildren discovered how to navigate a flipped canoe, swim across Lake Garfield and successfully bust open a piñata.
Barbara spent eight years in New York City living and traveling with her former partner, Philip Stone.
Even to the end, Barbara was up for, and often initiated, adventure. In fact, her new group of friends at her final residence, Linda Manor in Leeds, referred to themselves as The Insurrectionists. For her experience there, her children will be eternally grateful, as she reconnected with her joyous and rebellious sense of self for the first time in many years.
She is survived by her sister, Nancy Dutcher Strohmeier (Peter) of Riverside, Connecticut; her daughter Heather Zullinger (Robert L.) of Wayne, Pennsylvania; sons Justin F. Kimball (Maura Glennon) of Florence, Massachusetts, Alexander Kimball (Carolyn) of Avon, Connecticut, and Douglas Kimball (Jaime Ginsberg) of Hatfield, Massachusetts; a cousin, Stephen Dutcher (Lori) of Stuart, Florida.; and nieces Torrey Shawe (Tony) of Paris, France, and Lindsay Warnke (Craig) of Darien, Connecticut.
Barbara is also survived by her beloved grandchildren, who knew her as Bobby: Holly (fiancée Peter Costas), Kelly and Audrey Zullinger; Zeke, Ellie, Luke, Rafe, Piper, Huck, Dutcher, Olive and Casey Kimball.
“Sometimes there is a force of life like the spring which mysteriously takes shape without your even having asked it to take shape…” ~ James Wright
DONATIONS IN BARBARA’S HONOR MAY BE MADE TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD.
A CELEBRATION OF LIFE WILL BE HELD ON SATURDAY, JAN. 21, 2023, AT SMITH COLLEGE CONFERENCE CENTER, NORTHAMPTON, MA, FROM 1:00-4:00 PM. RSVP STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO hkz62@sbcglobal.net .